


Lakehouse

by wanderstag



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 15:13:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderstag/pseuds/wanderstag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fluffy little family ficlet about Will, Alana, and Abigail moving far away and starting a new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lakehouse

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: www.wanderstag.tumblr.com

“And there’s a lake, a few miles up the road. We could- I could teach you how to fish. If, uh, if that’d be something you’d like, of course.”

Alana leans against the passenger side window, hiding her smile against the side of her arm as it rests against the door. Will chats excitedly with Abigail, his fingers tapping erratic rhythms against the steering wheel, curling and uncurling his fingers and looking seemingly everywhere besides the rear view mirror. Even from his vantage point, he can’t force himself to meet her eyes in the glass. Alana reaches across the center console and laces her fingers through Will’s, running the pad of her thumb along his knuckles.

Relax, she mouths to him. His face splits into an easy, recklessly youthful sort of smile.

“I would,” Abigail replies gently, a soft smile pulling at the edges of her lips. She stares out the window, the blend of late autumn’s palette smearing hues of red across the windshield while they drive. Her scarf has become a permanent fixture around her neck, even after applying layers of concealer, and the fabric plays with the October breeze filtering through the open window. In equal parts habit and insecurity, she adjusts the knot so that it fits closer to the skin above her collar.

“I think you’ll like it. The high school isn’t too far from home, either,” Alana sits up in her seat, twisting so as to catch Abigail’s side profile as she continues to watch the scenery. “You could start over.”

“Start over,” Abigail echoes quietly, her gloved fingers tracing patterns in the fogged window.

“You’ll never escape your past, Abigail,” Alana reminds her lightly, “But you can always begin a new future. Nobody will know who you are, or what your father’s done. Will and I-” She cuts a glance to him, and then to their still-intertwined hands, before finally back to Abigail, “-We can help you.”

Abigail isn’t naïve. She knows that a new life won’t be simple. Alana is pragmatic, sensible, even, but Abigail can recognize when the purpose of her words are to soften the inevitable blow.

 You can never really escape the ghosts; they watch her from the foot of her bed, singing to her in a language impossible to understand. Dragging her beneath the rolling tides of her memories while she emerges, a fraction of a second before wasting her supply of oxygen. Impossible to escape, and yet, she ruminates over her life before Will and Alana had proposed the idea of moving away. How easy had it been, then? How simple, to stare into the dark, mirroring gaze of so many girls like her, to watch those once lighted eyes before dragging the knife across their chest, their arms and legs and swooping, cream colored necks. Gutting them, harvesting the meat, collecting the bones and hair and eyelashes. Perhaps they’d become a wall ornament, or a pillow. Never wasted.

Winston, who had been dozing lightly across Abigail’s lap, pushes his speckled nose into her palm while another dog (Roxy or Rory- she finds it a daunting task to remember each of their names), presses her paws into Abigail’s side as she twitches in a half-dreaming state. A scruffy, white dog is curled into Alana’s lap while she strokes behind his ears with the hand that isn’t holding Will’s. Will is murmuring something to Alana and smiling, over what Abigail finds it difficult to hear between the snoring dogs in the backseat.

And again, she wonders if her life with her father had been any simpler than this life, wedged in a car far too small for all of these furry limbs, twitching tails and lolling tongues.

No, she realizes, and with more certainty than she had felt in a long time. The ghosts will catch up, and they will be relentless, pressing, snarling creatures, twisting images of faceless girls like tops behind her eyelids. They’ll plague her through sleepless nights and rake their clutches across her skin. Maybe she’ll forget who she is, nothing more than a cold blooded murderer.

But, catching Will’s fleeting gaze in the rearview, she remembers that she won’t be alone with her nightmares.

And then Abigail realizes, surrounded by her strange, yet bafflingly complete family of strays, that she is willing to take her chances.


End file.
